Every Touch a War
by shelter
Summary: Short story. Rebuild-verse. Takes place in between 2.22 and 3.33. Asuka and Mari. To stay or defect? Everything you ever wanted or the sound of her breaking bones? What would you choose?


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**Every Touch a War **

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**Disclaimer:** _Neon Genesis Evangelion (or: Evangelion) belongs to Studio Gainax and Hideaki Anno. _

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_For putting up with my late night emails and revisions, I thank** anime-freaksg** (of Animenauts) for tirelessly proofreading and editing this fic_

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**Revision on 07.02.2014** - Attila1987 pointed out a trait of Asuka I missed on my earlier draft. So this current version is revised to include the fact that Asuka's missing her right eye from the incident with Bardiel.

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_"Reality is sharp_  
_it cuts at me like a knife_  
_everyone I know_  
_is in the fight of their life"_  
- "A Better Way", **Ben Harper**

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**(1) FACE UNDER FISTS**

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We watch half-naked men beat each other to death all afternoon. They rain blows, cripple each other with kicks and stomp faces down to the ground. A crowd cheers every time someone falls and doesn't get up.

They fight in an empty middle school quadrangle, the ground dusted with concrete fragments and fine glass powder. Busted windows look out over the brawling like unseeing, black eyes. Veined cracks writhe along the entire body of the school building. Beyond the warped fence lie melted goalposts and cars burned into shards.

Just as the sun begins to sink in its corner of the sky, the fights end. A man emerges from the fray to applause and hoots from spectators. As he moves the meat of his muscles ripple like chopped-up medallions shiny with sweat. Apart from a busted lip, he looks as if he's just taken a bath.

"This one looks cute," Four Eyes says.

He stomps up to me and deposits a wad of strawberry-coloured phlegm in my face. He says to me:

"I'm going to fuck you until you can never walk again."

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Like battling Angels, the most important part of a fight takes place before it even begins. It's the zone of infinite possibility before opponents clash, where the visualising takes place, where every move is spread out like an atlas with an X. Here, in the tense moments before I get called to the arena, battles are won.

Four Eyes talks up the crowd, leaving me to my pre-fight routine: wash hands, rinse mouth, listen to music. Pre-fight music has to be loud and full of bass, an assault on the ears. Four Eyes changes the songs, but the same ones keep coming through the headphones. With my fingers I tap out a tattoo of rhythm; I mouth the familiar English words to the song - _nothing to fear but fear itself/ we'll be ok just keep the faith._

"Ready, Princess?"

Four Eyes escorts me out into the ring to weak applause and flying arrows of spittle. At the very last moment she links her arms with mine, as if we're walking arm in arm at a fancy dress ball. She calls out introductions, and announces my opponent. She plays the part with an obscene amount of showmanship: flinging the red Adidas jacket off my shoulders like a matador, dusting mock dirt from my arms, giving me a peck on the cheek. The crowd loves it.

"So, Princess, you know what -"

"Yeah," I reply.

She steps out of the way, and the man from earlier and I begin to circle.

"I'll crush you," he says. "No Eva here to rescue you."

He's a talker. So I keep silent. This I've learnt: before the first blow, I need to feel nothing but hatred for my opponent if I want to win. Hatred comes from pushing the right feelings to the front. Four Eyes knows this. She never arranges fights with women because she knows I'll be fighting a mirror image of myself, that I'll grow soft or pity the girl. When she wants me to push deep, she'll say my enemy looks like that _baka_ -

But Loud Mouth is no daddy's boy. He's all twitching biceps and sweat crusted on his upper lip. He clears his nose in the space between us. His gaze burns through clothes to my crotch.

"When I'm done with you I'll put you in a dress and up on my trophy shelf."

He lunges. His experimental jab meets my raised arms and the impact shimmies down my spine. The next punch swings in at my head. I dodge, turn and strike. We part, my toes stinging from impact. Loud Mouth shows teeth and comes back roaring.

He flings punch after punch, shoving my arms aside. He goes for the face. Each attack cuts so close that a rush of wind nips at my nose. He launches a kick that catches me in the elbow. I graze his shoulder with a desperate lunge. He does a sweeping roundhouse that parts my arms and connects with my mouth. I stumble and - fuckfuckfuck - I'm on the ground -

The sky turns into shadow - and I spin away as a foot stamps into the concrete. I move but find my leg stuck. A stabbing pain seizes my thigh. I see Loud Mouth's foot holding me down. "Stop struggling and lose," he growls. He reels me in like bait, clutching my ankle.

In the split second between thought and action, I look at the crowd. Fifty men leaning in close and leering and screaming. Then, there's Four Eyes: head cocked to one side, one finger touching her purple ray-bans, a grin sliding into her face like an afterthought, as if to say, "Stop wasting time already."

So I turn, face Loud Mouth and give him a shove with my right arm. Then my left elbow finds his jaw. It's enough for him to fall back. Enough time to turn and hurl a knee into his face.

He comes away with a mouthful of diamonds. He blindly barrels his fist in my direction. When he overestimates a swing, I duck him in the abdomen. Knuckle connects with ribs, and I feel bones breaking already.

I have him. I have him all twisted and scrambling and still shooting off his mouth in a sad display of false bravado. "Don't stop clapping! I'm going back in this -" So I count to five and fire a foot to his forehead. He falls instantly.

For a moment, half my vision leaks crimson. Something twitches in the ruins of my left eye.

When it passes all I see is Loud Mouth on the ground. I step over him and sit on his chest, cradling in his head in between my knees. As the setting sun dips above the huddle of buildings like a blood clot, I punch away until the face in front of me ceases to resemble a face anymore.

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The biggest inconvenience after every fight is washing away blood. So Four Eyes secures a washroom in the abandoned school that still has functioning utilities. She stands guard as I freshen up post-fight.

Calcium has consumed most of the taps and shower heads, and the water streaming out has an almost sour, coppery taste. I stand with my arms on the urine-yellow wall tiles as a torrent of water slides off my body. It pools in around my feet, rust-coloured, filled with dead insects, skeletal leaves and flecks of torn skin. The water turns my hair bone straight, and I undo all the tangles clotted with dried blood.

Beyond a curtain, Four Eyes sings to herself. She's counting the winning: I can hear the shushing of paper. Why she delights in cash when the end of the world is imminent is beyond everyone's understanding.

"If you keep this up, there'll be no one left to fight," she says aloud.

As I dry myself, ripples bloom in concentric circles from the stems of my feet. The drainage doesn't work and with each move water floods the bathroom, an ever-expanding ocean of tea. At the centre of the showers, a tooth, not mine, stands as obvious as an iceberg in the sea.

"You're stoning again."

She's standing with her arms crossed, feet swallowed by the flood. Like the Loud Mouth from before, her eyes travel across flesh, finally reaching up to my eyes.

"What's your problem?"

"You'll make us miss curfew again."

"So?"

"Misato will worry."

"That bitch? She should worry about herself."

"Hit a sore spot, Princess?"

"I hate it - hate it when you call me that -"

But she reaches out at me. Instinctively I ready for a punch, a slap - a fighter's mentality ingrained from fighting Angels and growling men. But she tucks away a corner of my falling towel under my armpit like adjusting a cocktail dress.

"Beautiful," she says.

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We part at the intersection of NERV boulevard and the refugee claims centre. We peer out from corners before crossing the empty streets. Curfew has been in place for an hour already.

Once we make it to the end of the street, it's time to go our separate ways. Four Eyes puts a hand on her side, her body cocked in a parting gesture that's both suggestive and wistful.

"Next time dinner's on me," she says. "See you at work."

She slips casually in and out of the circular glows from the last remaining street lamps. Wads of money inflate her pockets like stuffed fists.

I make my way home, past the bones of blasted bridges and along LCL-filled rivers that vein this dying city. A final turn leads me home to Misato's apartment. Here, a massive, shredded billboard with the NERV logo sits at the end of a rubble-strewn road. Beneath it, an expanding puddle strands a brown corpse with a stomach like a balloon.

The lights from other units glow, pockmarking the building with squares of fluorescent. Voices from these neighbours echo in the corridors. But I've never actually seen any of them. As I fumble for keys, I wonder if they're all NERV staff or squatters.

I handle the door knob like a grenade, making as little noise as possible. I'm halfway across the kitchenette when Misato's voice falls like an alarm:

"It's after curfew."

She's seated at the dining table, in the dark, perpendicular to the door. Her shadowy silhouette dominates the kitchenette, with shoulders thrown back like a king and sitting completely still. Her fingers beat on the table, aflutter with impatience.

She gets up and paws at the nearest switch. Light blasts the room. My eyes take a moment to adjust. By then Misato has narrowed the distance between us to the length of a punch - or a slap. Shadows pool under her eyes. The absence of make-up makes an exhibit of the lines of her face.

"Were you out with Mari again?" she asks.

"What do you think?"

"Is she safe?"

"No idea. She can take care of herself."

"She did that to your chin?"

"What?"

"Your chin. Why the bruise?"

"You're asking too many questions."

She sighs, looks away It's clear she doesn't want to fight, and I don't want to know why or start a shouting match. So this means I've won this round.

Before she can say anything, I turn to leave for the bathroom. It's better this way.

"Asuka."

I shut the door and flush the toilet. Its violent roar drowns out any unnecessary concessions or demands from the other side of the door.

Facing the mirror, I tilt my chin to see a moon-shaped smudge just below the line of my lips. Touching it brings back a visual recollection of the moment Loud Mouth's feet hit the spot. For now, nothing can be done but wait for it to heal.

As the bathroom goes quiet my refection in the mirror stares back, defiant: the dark scarf of hair, the rail-thin arms, one eye rimmed with exhaustion, the other a luminous globe in a crater of dead, crusted skin. I count to twenty - forty - eighty - until a hundred and thirty-three - before I hear Misato finally give up her siege on the bathroom door. Twenty more counts, and I head out into the dark apartment - past that baka's room and the ruins of his life - straight to the narrow headland of my bed.

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_End chapter 1_

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Edited on 05.02.2014

**Credits:** Image for this fic comes from dizzily of slntfireflyicon from Livejournal. Opening quote comes from the bridge to Ben Harper's "A Better Way", off his 2006 album _Both Sides of the Gun_

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**NOTES:**

_I'm on unfamiliar territory here. It's my first time writing about the Rebuild-universe, which is so broad and sparse that there are so many plot points to address. And, after writing some reviews on several first-POV stories, I felt it was only right that I get off my high horse and practice what I preach. First-POV isn't my style and I'm revising sentences more than usual, but I wanted to challenge myself. Especially since Asuka is not one of the characters I like very much. _

_So to recap: a confusing canon, an unfamiliar writing style and characters I'm not 100% fond of. Three strikes. Hopefully this won't be a failed experiment._

_As usual, here are my questions that will help me tweak and improve future chapters:_

**_(a) Assuming no prior knowledge of the canon, what character traits can you discern from Asuka's first POV 'voice'?_**

**_(b) If it isn't clear that Four Eyes is Mari, is her character too tied to Asuka's for her to be fleshed out properly?_**

_I have four chapters planned (more or less, including an epilogue). If all goes well, I will cover everything in between 2.22 and 3.33 from Asuka's perspective, including how she ended up with WILLE. _

_Next chapter update will be end-Feb or early-March._

_Thank you for reading and for your comments! Do check out my other fics as well._


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